Wally
by Pickwick12
Summary: Wally West's ongoing perspective on his life and his newfound family. This story functions as a companion story to The Flash, The Girl, and The Cop, but it's not necessary to have read that to understand it. All stories in this group follow show canon (won't have things happening to characters that conflict with establish facts as they currently stand).
1. Mama

My mama Francine was a beautiful woman, and she was smart. When I was a kid, she worked three jobs and went to school. We used to do our homework together, and she would cook hamburgers while she was reading Shakespeare and Pythagoras.

"Baby," she would say, "education is everything. I don't care what grades you get. I just care that you try." Turns out, we both got a lot of As. I went to her university graduation, and they let me wear a miniature cap and gown and walk the stage with her. Everybody liked her. It's just how she was.

She didn't walk the stage with me when I graduated, but I would have been happy if she had. She was sitting on the front row in my high school auditorium, grinning her head off. "Wally," she said, when I came down and handed her my cap—a full-sized one this time—"you're everything I ever hoped you would be." I felt so proud I almost couldn't take it.

Mama knew she was sick by then. She didn't know how bad it was yet, but I think she had a feeling. She didn't tell me because she wanted me to go on to college, but I found some of her pills, and I made her tell me. She'd already lost weight, and she was smaller than I'd ever seen her, which was saying a lot because she was always slight—like something I needed to protect, even though she was tougher than steel.

"Baby," she finally admitted, "I'm not well." That was the first time I heard the whole story. She could hardly look at me when she explained that back a while, before I was born, she'd been an addict. a hardcore one who went to rehab after rehab.

"I never told you because I was too ashamed."

"Mama," I answered, "I'm just proud. You went through that and became who you are. I'm just proud."

She cried, and I hugged her frail body tight, and I didn't accept any of the offers I got for college scholarships that spring. I stayed home, and I worked, and I drove Mama to her job at the addiction counseling center where she'd helped hundreds of people change their lives the way somebody had helped her.

Pretty soon, it was clear she wasn't getting better. She had to stop working, and she had doctor's appointments once and month and then once a week. She didn't like to talk about it a lot, but I knew we wouldn't be able to afford it much longer.

So I lied. I lied to the most beautiful woman in the world, and I told her I'd gotten a second job. The truth is, I was street racing, and I was good at it. Sometimes I made thousands in a night, when a good audience came out. I hid the money so she wouldn't figure it out, but I paid for all of her medical bills.

She said I was an angel for working so hard. I felt bad, but what was I supposed to do? She was dying, and there was nothing I could do to stop it. All I could do was make sure she had the best of everything, to make sure she would never have to suffer.

When she had bad days, I carried her to the bathroom and to bed and to the sofa, so she could read by the light of the living room lamp and look out the window. I quit my regular job and told her I was working nights. By then, we could survive on what I made racing.

They gave her a new medicine that made her a little bit better for a while, but by then they were talking about her life in terms of months, not years. She told me she wanted to go to Central City, and I couldn't come with her. "Why are you being like this, Mama?" I asked. I wanted to go, but she said she had to do it alone, to take care of things that had to do with her life before—before me, before sobriety, before she was the woman I knew.

She didn't come back for a few weeks. I called her every day to see how she was, to make sure she was taking her medicine, just to hear her voice. She wouldn't tell me what she was doing. Finally, when she came home, I picked her up at the airport, and she looked so tired and tiny that I almost cried. I hugged her as tight as I could, but I was afraid of hurting her.

"I have to tell you some things, Baby," she said. That night, she was too tired to talk, so I fed her some soup and tucked her into bed and gave her her sleeping medicine. Like always, I went to the races. It was the best I'd ever done. I made $5,000 in two hours. It was like all of my sadness and worry had become anger that fueled me and made me faster. I drove for my mama, though she didn't know it.

The next morning, we ate breakfast together, and I sat on the couch beside her with a bowl of cereal. "Wally," she said, "it's not going to be long before I have to go into the hospital. I think you know that. I didn't want to tell you what I was doing in Central City in case it didn't work out. I went to find your dad and your sister."

Dad. Sister. I'd always wanted to have a dad. What kid doesn't, who hasn't had one? Mama hadn't talked about him much, other than to say he was out of her life before I was born. She'd never said anything bad about him, but she hadn't said anything good, either. As a kid, I'd spent hours imagining he was somebody cool, like a spy or a fireman. Once she'd finally told me about her past, I'd assumed he was part of her bad times, probably a drug addict like she'd been.

"My dad?" I'd long ago given up on ever knowing him, and I wasn't sure I even wanted to any more.

"His name is Joe West," she said. "He's a police detective, and he's the most decent man I've ever known." My mind started spinning around in circles. You might think I'd be angry at her for not telling me. If he was such a great guy, why couldn't I know about him? But I was just surprised. "I'm sorry—I waited until now to tell you," she continued. "He and Iris, they were part of my other life, and I didn't know how to explain it."

"It's ok," I said quickly, not wanting her to get upset, "you had your reasons."

That's what I told myself. She was my mama. Of course she had her reasons. Good ones. Besides, no matter what she said, how good of a guy could he be if he was a police detective who lost his wife and never found her?

I didn't know him, but Joe West was a good target for my anger, so I turned it all that direction. And I had a lot of anger. I was watching my mother die, I had a family I'd never known about, and I had no idea if I'd ever be able to go back to school and finish my education to become the man my mama had always hoped I'd be.

She let me think about things for a couple of days. I was helping her wash her hair when she brought it up again. "Son, when it comes time for me to go to the hospital, I want to go into the one in Central City, near your dad and your sister Iris."

"Why?" I asked. "Your doctors here are great."

She shook her head. "You do what I tell you, Wally West. Before I go, I want to know that you know your family. I can't leave until I give you to Joe."

Give you to Joe. I didn't argue with her; I was determined to never really argue with her about anything ever again; her time was too short. But I seethed inside. Who said I needed her to give me to anybody? Hadn't I been taking care of her for months, all by myself? I was a man, for heaven's sake. I'd gotten by that long without a dad or a sibling. I couldn't understand why she wouldn't just let us be together to the end.

"Baby." She could tell I wasn't happy, even though I tried to hide it. "Joe is—he's not like other people. He's the best person I've ever known in my entire life. And your sister Iris is beautiful and kind and smart, just like him. I didn't have any right to push myself back into their lives after all this time, but they met with me, and they listened to me. I want you to know them. I want them to take care of you when I'm gone."

I bit back the urge to tell her that I didn't need anyone to take care of me and finished rinsing her hair. Two weeks later, I found myself checking her into long-term stay in the McGregor's unit at the Central City General Hospital.


	2. Christmas

I spent Christmas by my Mama's side. She was strong enough to get out of bed, and we ate turkey and dressing on the hospital's third-floor balcony. I gave her a new robe—pink, her favorite color. She gave me a flashdrive filled with pictures of us together, from when I was little, all the way through. I was glad I didn't have my computer there, because when I got back to my temporary apartment, I cried the whole time I was looking through it.

That night, I finally went to Joe's house. I didn't want to, but she said it was her greatest Christmas wish. Who's going to say no to his dying mom when she asks like that? So I drove to the suburbs, where all the fake-nice people live, and I found a regular-looking two-story house. It was the same house, Mama had told me, that she'd shared with Joe. He wasn't big on change, apparently.

I got there pretty late on purpose so I wouldn't have to stay long. There were lights on and extra cars, so I figured they were having a party. I thought about turning right around and leaving, but I couldn't face telling my mom I'd chickened out.

"Come on, Wally," I said to myself. "This is the only time you ever have to talk to them." I finally went to the door when I'd psyched myself up.

"Hi, I'm Wally; I'm Francine's son." I wanted to make it clear up front that I was only there for my mom. But it was my dad who opened the door, and Iris was standing there. Mama wasn't kidding about the beautiful part. Iris was beautiful like a movie star or a model, like my mama was when she was younger and healthier. I didn't really see what Joe looked like right then. My brain kept telling me he was my dad, but I couldn't make it feel real. He was just a really tall guy who looked like he was seeing a ghost when he looked at me.

The company at Joe's house was another couple who also looked like models or something. I was in a room full of weirdly attractive people, and they were all really close and really happy. I felt like an outsider, and I wished I hadn't come after all, regardless of what my mother wanted.

"Wally, this is Barry, our foster brother," Iris told me, and I shook hands with the good-looking, skinny guy.

"Long story," he said. "Nice to meet you. This is Detective Spivot, Joe's partner." So the blonde was a cop. I was in a house with two police detectives, and I was a guy who made his living doing illegal racing. That's irony for you.

Joe tried to give me a glass of champagne, but I didn't take it. "I'd better go back to Francine," I said.

"Please—tell her we're thinking of her," he answered.

"Whatever," I said, already on my way out the door.

"Wally." Iris's voice stopped me. "Will you come to dinner next Monday night?"

"Um, ok." I couldn't think fast enough to say no, and it wasn't until I'd gotten to my car that I realized I'd actually agreed to see these people again. As I drove back to the hospital, I tried to collect my thoughts about Joe.

But I couldn't really do it. He was just a guy. Who was my dad. It was weird and uncomfortable, and I wished I could stop being curious, but I couldn't. Part of me still wanted to know what kind of guy he was. Besides, what could one more dinner really hurt? I could go once more and then never again.

"How was it, Baby?" Mama looked so happy when I got back to her room that I no longer regretted going, not after it brought the biggest smile to her face that I'd seen in days.

"It was ok." I made myself smile.

"How were they?" She wasn't going to be satisfied with generalities.

"Iris is gorgeous, just like you said, and Joe seems—fine."

She shook her head. She could see through me; she always could. "When are you seeing them again?"

"They asked me over for dinner Monday."

Mama's eyes drilled into me. "You're going to go, and you're going to try."

I sighed. "You realize this isn't going to be as easy as you want it to be."

"I don't care about easy," she said. "I just care about effort. You're a good son, Wally. I just want you to finally have the father you deserve." I didn't have the heart to tell her that her detective ex wasn't likely to appreciate a son who did the things I did every night, even if I did want to have anything to do with him, which I didn't—much.

So I went, and it was weird, and I left.

Of course, my mother wasn't going to stand for that as an explanation, so I lied to her. It wasn't that difficult any more; I'd been lying to her about racing for ages. I didn't tell her that I'd felt awkward, that I could tell Joe had felt just as strange as I did, and that we'd all seemed like we were trying too hard. That I was pretty sure it was never going to work.

I told—I told her we'd looked at pictures of their past life together, that Joe had cooked an amazing dinner, that Iris had told me all about her job. I watched Mama's eyes light up, and I tried to focus on her happiness instead of the gnawing guilt about my dishonesty that made me sick to my stomach.

If it hadn't been for that guilt, I never would have gone back and tried again. You wouldn't have caught me dead at Joe's house or with my sister again. But I felt bad because I couldn't escape the truth any more—my mother was dying, and it wouldn't be long.

So I let them talk me into one more time, and this time, it wasn't so bad. It wasn't good. That's not what I'm saying at all. But it didn't make me want to crawl out of my own skin. This time, Joe acted like a pretty normal guy, and I guess I acted like me, and it went okay. This time, I told Mama the truth, that we were getting to know each other.


	3. Goodbye

It's strange how things don't go the way you expect. I had thought that when Joe and Iris found out I was a racer, it would be a huge deal, and that when my mom finally got to the end, I'd be ok. But the opposite turned out to be true.

Sure, they weren't thrilled about the racing, but when I told them it was for the hospital bills, they pretty much let it go. But then came the day I went to visit my mama, and she looked at me, and we both knew it was almost over.

A life. The life of a woman who confronted demons I couldn't even imagine and beat them. A woman who helped other people do what she'd done, who gave herself so that other people could find their own strength. A mother who'd raised me on her own, loved me enough for ten people, let alone two. Francine. The most beautiful woman in the world. How could there even be a world if she wasn't in it any more?

So I bolted. I let the speed take over, and I raced harder than I'd ever raced before. Who cared if I was safe? Who cared if I made it back? I sure didn't want to even think about a day breaking and a life ending. I just wanted to forget.

Iris, it turned out, cared a lot. She was furious. I didn't want to do what she said, but I knew she was right. I knew if I didn't say goodbye to Mama, I would never forgive myself. Sometimes, when you're not a kid any more, you have to choose between one horrible option and another horrible option.

I couldn't do it alone. I didn't have any friends in Central City—not any real ones—so I asked the only person I could ask. I asked my beautiful sister if she would come with me to say goodbye to our mother.

She said yes. Of course she said yes. I can't write about how it was. I can't talk about how Mama looked or what it was like to finally know that all of our years together and all of the months of taking care of her were finally ending, like the very last grains of sand in an hourglass. I just wanted to shake that hourglass until a few more grains of sand fell out, a few more minutes. But Mama was happy. The one thing I can bear to remember is the pride that was in her eyes. She was proud of me, and she was proud of my sister.

So we went outside, me and Iris. I couldn't think. I didn't even know what was going on until I realized we were beside the car, and I was crying. Finally. Crying so hard I was shaking and couldn't stop myself. Crying for all the months I hadn't cried because I'd been strong for my mama.

My sister came over, close, and she put her arms around me. She's not very big, just like Mama, but her arms felt just as strong and just as safe. Like I had when I was a little boy with my mother, I buried my face in her shoulder. You'd think I'd have felt embarrassed or something, but I didn't. Iris kept hold of me for a long time, and she rubbed my neck the exact same way my mother always had. Maybe things like that are hereditary; I don't know. But it felt exactly right.

"I'm sorry." I pulled away when I had control of myself, feeling bad that I'd asked my sister to come with me and then put her through something that intense.

"You have nothing to be sorry for, Wally. I'm just glad you let me come."

I got into the car after her, and I didn't pay much attention to where she was driving until she pulled into the parking lot of an ice cream place with a pink sign. "Dad used to bring Barry and me here on bad days," she said. I didn't argue, and she ordered me something called an ultimate sundae. The thing was so huge it was practically the size of my head, and when I saw it, I laughed, for the first time all day. Iris smiled at me, and it was nice. Good, in spite of everything, to eat way too much ice cream across the table from my big sister.

Joe and Iris were at Mama's service three days later, but they didn't intrude on anything. A lot of people came, ex-addicts, coworkers, nurses and doctors who'd cared for her—people who'd admired my mother's will to live. I only had enough emotional strength to make it through the day. I didn't pay attention to Joe or to my sister, except to thank them for coming the way I thanked everyone else.

"Wally, why don't you come to our house?" Once the graveside prayer was finished, the sun was beginning to go down, and Iris put a hand on my shoulder.

I shook my head. "I'm tired. I think I'll go home and get to bed early," I lied.

"Okay," she answered. "Whatever you want." Joe nodded, but I didn't react. I waited until their car was gone to leave because they knew where I was staying, and I didn't want them to see, in the dwindling light, that I was heading the opposite direction.

I needed speed. I needed to feel everything except the road melt away. I was angry, sad, and lonely, so I channeled my feelings into the race, and I won big. It wasn't my biggest night ever, but it was close.

The guy who paid me gave me a weird look. "Man, that was a lot of crazy, even for you. I thought you were going to flip your car about five times." I shrugged. It just didn't feel like it mattered.

When I finally got into bed, it was the early hours of the morning, and I closed my eyes and tried to make myself imagine that my mother wasn't gone; she was just in the hospital, like she'd been for so long, waiting for me to come and see her.

But it didn't work. I was just a kid who'd lost his mama, who felt achingly alone in an ugly, scary world.


	4. Joe

Joe was cool. I mean, I hadn't expected him to be an axe murderer or anything, but he was a high-level police detective, and I didn't expect the kind of chill he had in the weeks following my mom's passing.

It wasn't so weird that he was cool about me coming and going. There were a couple of times I pushed a little bit—stood him up for coffee or didn't show for dinner, and he didn't even get onto me about it. He was more like a friend than a dad, but I figured that if you didn't meet your dad until you were my age, that was probably how it went.

I was a lot more surprised when he came to the races and didn't go ballistic. To tell the truth, the way I look back and see it now, I was really pushing him by then. I wanted to see where friend mode ended and dad mode started. Except, there didn't seem to be any kind of line. He was just chill.

"This is great," I told myself. Except, it didn't feel that great. There was a way that Joe and my sister were, together, that I didn't have with him. It wasn't just about the extra years they'd had. It was the way they related, the way Joe would still tell her to be careful, the way he would scold her when he found out she'd walked home by herself after working late at night, the way she would stand close to him when we were talking. I don't even think she realized she was doing it, but it was like she used him as a protective shield when she was feeling insecure. It wasn't just the years; the way they related to each other said volumes about a father who had his daughter's full respect and about a woman who was independent but still saw him as her dad.

Iris noticed the difference too. We were getting burgers for lunch three weeks after mom's funeral, when she lasered in on me. "Why are you still racing? Hasn't Dad talked to you?"

"Joe's cool about it," I said, not calling him Dad on purpose.

Iris rolled her eyes. "Our dad is a lot of things—he's loving; he's protective; he's trustworthy. He's somebody you stake your life on. But one thing he isn't is 'cool' about things that are dangerous and illegal. He doesn't have a chill bone in his body about things like that."

I shrugged. "Don't ask me."

She pursed her lips. "Well, he may have lost his mind, but I haven't lost mine, and I don't know what you're thinking."

I finished the last bite of my burger and got up. "We're not having some kind of brother and sister fight right now, Iris. Joe is fine with what I do, so either get fine with it, or get out."

It was a jerk thing to say, and I saw hurt register across her face the moment I'd said it. I got out of there as fast as I could, not wanting to go back and face her right then. I figured I'd at least been strong enough to keep her from messing with me about the racing any more. But I didn't know my sister. Not really.

My sister Iris didn't give up on things she believed in, and she especially didn't give up on people she loved. And she loved me, a lot more than I deserved to be loved right then.

But Iris wasn't totally unlike me, either, so she dressed up and threatened a crime boss and came to the races herself, things as dangerous as anything I'd ever done. We're like that in our family, I guess.

But then everything happened really fast, and The Flash showed up, but Iris got hurt anyway. Iris, my big sister, got stabbed by a shard of glass that moved faster than anything I'd ever seen. It felt like watching my mother die all over again, except in an instant instead of over time. My breath caught, my heart pounded, and I thought I was going to pass out, but I didn't.

I—it wasn't glass that went for my sister; it was me. The glass never would have been there if she'd had a better brother. The Flash wouldn't have had to save me, and I wouldn't have nearly cost Joe his only daughter. It was all my fault for racing like a maniac when I didn't even need to any more.

I didn't know what to do. I thought about running away from Central City, never looking back and pretending that I'd never found out about Iris or Joe. But I could hear my mama's voice in my head, telling me not to be a coward, to own up to my mistake, even when it was a huge one.

So I dressed up nice, and I bought some flowers, and I squared my shoulders. If I was going to see Joe and Iris for the last time, I was going to do it right. I was going to take their rejection like a man and admit that I'd failed—to be the brother Iris deserved or the son Joe should have had. I would go to the hospital and tell them how sorry I was, and that would be that. I would leave and live my life and act like I'd never had any family except the mother I'd lost.

The hospital wasn't that weird to me. I'd spent plenty of time there with my mother. I found Iris's room, and that's when I started to get shaky. I opened the door, and my sister was lying in bed, looking like our mom, with oxygen and an IV. And Joe had worry lines in his forehead and looked like he hadn't slept.

"It's ok, Wally." I hadn't expected that, and it jolted me on the inside. My sister looked over at me, and she didn't look mad. I didn't know what to do—nothing was going how I'd thought it would.

I couldn't remember anything I'd planned to say, so I mumbled something stupid about the flowers I was holding and left them on a table in Iris's room. I turned around to leave, figuring that even if it wasn't the exit from their lives that I'd planned, at least I hadn't left without seeing them one last time.

Only, that's not how it went at all. I left Joe and Iris together, but I didn't get away. A tall cop with a deep voice followed me down the hall. My pulse quickened, but I stopped to listen to Joe. I wanted to hear what he had to say, even if he was gong to start yelling. At least it would be something, a sign that he was paying attention—that maybe he didn't want to see the last of me.

I'd planned to take responsibility for everything that had happened to Iris, but when I was face-to-face with Joe, I suddenly had a desperate desire to convince him it wasn't my fault, to try to make him think I wasn't as much of a loser as I felt like I was. The funny thing is, he didn't even care about that. What he cared about was me taking my life in my hands—and about me leaving my family when they needed me and I needed them. My family.

I'm not sure I would have stayed even after that, but then he said something I realized I'd been waiting for him to say all along. "I'm not your friend, Wally. I'm your father." Friends had always been a part of my life, coming and going. I could find friends anywhere. But I'd never had a dad, and that's the thing I'd always wanted.

Right then and there, walking down a hospital hallway, I'd found Joe West's line. Almost losing me was what made him stop trying to be my fake friend and let himself be my real dad, a dad who told me he wasn't going to let me go. I believed him, and as I walked back to Iris's room, I thought about exactly what he'd said—that he waited up at night, worried because he had a son who put his life on the line all the time. I probably should have felt bad about that, but it just made me feel a little bit safer in the world.

When I got back to the room, Iris was asleep, so I sat in the chair by the window and closed my eyes and let myself think about what it meant to hear Joe's voice calling me his son, to feel his hand on my shoulder, to get full-on dad mode—and not mind, because it just felt right.

I'd expected to walk into that hospital room and end up without any family, but instead I found myself sitting beside my sister, feeling kind of warm and calm because I was part of something and not rejected after all. My dad—now that he was acting like my dad—had this way of chilling me out, calming me down, defusing what I was feeling. He was always like that; that was just the first time I'd experienced it for myself—far from the last, though. I couldn't think of him as Joe West any more. That was too far away, and I was starting to feel closer. He wasn't just the guy who served me dinner once a week any more.

He was the one who wouldn't let me go. He was my dad.


	5. Barry

Barry shouldn't have been that big of a deal. I should have been totally cool about my dad having a former foster kid who was basically his best friend and his favorite coworker and his ideal housemate all rolled into one. I shouldn't have called him a coward, and I should have been adult about it when he tried to help me out with my projects, even though it was awkward.

But I wasn't. Whenever I saw him, the feeling of gnawing fear that it was all going to collapse came rushing back, the thunderclap of terror that Joe and Iris would figure out I wasn't much of anything by comparison and decide not to keep me in their family after all.

Iris already had a brother. Tall, nice, freaking handsome, like some kind of male model. And he was good at everything. I told myself he was always trying to rub it in my face, but he wasn't. He was just that smart. He couldn't help it.

I mean, maybe he could have been a little more welcoming. I blamed him for all of the awkwardness, but it's not like it was his fault Joe had taken him in when he didn't know I existed. He never chose to be first.

But it still felt like somebody, somewhere, had pointed a finger at the two of us and picked Barry instead of me—Mr. Smart, Mr. Nice, Mr. Perfect. Iris lit up when he came into a room. Joe hugged him all the time. They couldn't stop telling me about what a great guy he was, what a smart scientist and great friend.

I didn't realize how mad I was until the "coward" comment came out. It was ugly, like something you would say to somebody in sixth grade, not something reasonable adults say to each other. That's how I knew that it wasn't the adult Wally who was upset—it was the kid who'd had to explain to people all of his life that he didn't just not have a dad; he didn't even know who his dad was—and thought he never would. That kid was terrified that he was going to lose the dad he'd finally found, because of perfect teeth and hair and a guy who'd already taken up all the love for a son that Joe West had to give.

So Joe did a thing he does a lot—not that I knew it yet. He took me out for a meal. And he told me he was proud of me; that's something else he does a lot. I tested him. It was petty and kind of childish, but I gave him a chance to give Barry all the credit for my work, and he wouldn't do it. He saw right through me like he was looking through a clean window pane, and he looked right at that scared kid and told him what he needed to hear—told me what I needed to hear. About bringing Barry home, a kid who didn't have anybody. About being proud of a man who could have turned ugly but hadn't. About the kid he and Iris had claimed for their own. A kid who wasn't me, who had a different place in Joe's heart than mine, but not a place that was any bigger or more important.

I tried to play it cool, but I felt pure relief rush through me like an avalanche, and my sickening anxiety eased for the first time since I'd met Joe and Iris. I could feel myself smiling like a dolt, but Joe didn't seem to mind.

At the end of the meal, he paid the bill and walked me outside. "Wally, you coming over tonight? Iris is making her mac and cheese from scratch, and Barry plans to beat me in chess again." He had his hand on my shoulder, casually, like it was no big deal.

Like it was no unusual thing for Wally West to be standing outside a diner in Central City, talking to a dad who actually wanted him around. And it occurred to me right then that it wasn't going to be an unusual thing any more, because I had Joe, and he had me, and neither of us had any interest in letting go.

"Sure," I heard myself say. "I'll come." I'd been coming up with a lot of excuses to avoid Barry, but I didn't care so much any more. It wasn't like all the difficult feelings went away all at once, but for the first time, I didn't care that I was me instead of Mr. Perfect. I was Joe's kid. I was the one standing there with his hand on my shoulder.

"All right," he said finally, "I have to get back to work. Be good, Wally." He grinned and held out his arms, and that kid inside me dove into his dad's embrace. I closed my eyes—and thought of Barry. I finally understood the look on his face when he'd just gotten a hug from Joe—pretty often, actually; Joe likes hugs as much as he likes coffee.

Joe's not that complicated. He's honest, and he's decent, and he has your back. And when you're in his arms, you feel like you're in the safest place in the whole world, no matter how old you are. That kind of love is powerful; it can change you and heal things inside you that you didn't know needed healing. That's how it was for Barry, I realized, just like it was for me. He needed Joe as much as I did, and we both had our places. It wasn't about competing; it was about belonging to a family that had more than enough love to go around.


	6. Need

"Wally. Son." Joe found me slumped over on his couch, sobbing my eyes out.

He'd given me a key a few weeks earlier, and I'd been coming over now and then in the middle of the day when I knew he and Barry would both be at work, to get away from the dorm I'd moved into, where there was never any privacy. In Joe's house, I could finally let out the tears I kept hidden away the rest of the time. I still felt embarrassed when I remembered breaking down in front of Iris outside the hospital. At the time, it had felt good, but I'd beaten myself up afterward. I didn't cry in front of people, ever, but there was no point in trying to stop this time, since Joe had already found me out.

He sat down beside me and put his big hand flat on my shaking back, like a warm anchor to keep me from drifting away on a sea of grief. I took my hands away from my eyes and looked over at him. "I'm sorry."

Joe just shook his head. "Sorry for what? Missing your mom?"

"For being—needy," I choked out. Needy had always been a bad word to me. I'd learned when I was very young not to ask my mom for things, not to bother her, not to do anything to make her feel like she wasn't doing enough. Not to show that I ever needed anything. It wasn't because she was a bad mom or because she would have gotten angry, but I could see how much she worked and how tired she was. She'd had enough on her plate raising me on her own, and I'd never wanted to make it worse. Of course, once she'd gotten sick, I'd been able to be there for her the way she'd always been for me, and my determination to take care of myself had solidified even more. I had eventually managed to convince myself I didn't need anything anyway. People needed things from me; I didn't need anything from them.

"Wally, you just lost your mother. You need the rest of your family more than ever. That's not something you get to pick. It's just how grief is. Going it alone doesn't work; trust me." Joe's tone of voice was soothing, but his words leaned on my resolve in an uncomfortable way.

I tried to stop crying, but I couldn't, so I shook my head and tried to argue through my tears. "It's not—I'm fine. I just needed somewhere quiet. I didn't think you'd be home."

"I left my cell phone here this morning," Joe answered. "And I'm really glad I did." All this time, he hadn't broken physical contact. "It's just you and me, Son. Nobody else. You don't have to be ashamed to cry in front of me. I'm your dad. That's what I'm here for." He scooted over closer. "Come here." I thought about fighting him, but I was tired, and not being alone felt good, even though it went against every ounce of my stubborn self-reliance.

Joe was a pro at the comforting thing. Within a few seconds, he'd maneuvered me into his arms with my head on his shoulder. You'd think it would have been weird, but it wasn't. I guess everybody's a kid when they're hurting, including me.

He didn't say anything else, just held me while I thought about my mama and cried. When you grow up with your dad, if he's not a psycho, every kid probably has some kind of memory of getting hurt and crying in his arms, at least when you're little. It's kind of a universal thing. But I'd never experienced it before.

My mama wasn't a very big woman, and it had been years since she'd been able to hold much of me. I'd been the one holding her for a long time, and it had always been the same with the girls I'd dated, not just physically, but in every way. They'd needed me, and I'd liked being needed. With Joe it was different. He was bigger than me, stronger, and I actually fit in his arms. For once, my need wasn't too big for someone else to meet.

"I love you," Joe finally said, when my tears were getting softer and less violent, "and I don't want you to ever talk that way about being needy again. Iris and Barry and I are your family now, and that's what family does—we need each other, and we're here for each other. You got that?"

I nodded against his shoulder, as my breathing finally leveled out. "Joe, I—love you too." His response was to give me a tight squeeze before he sat back and let me go.

I rubbed my sleeve across my eyes, feeling worn out but worlds better. "That didn't suck," I said, staring at the carpet, a little embarrassed.

Joe patted my shoulder. "Do you have a class later?"

I shook my head no. "This is my off day."

"Then why don't you take a nap here? You look tired, and you'll get more rest than if you try to sleep in a dorm room in the middle of the day." He wasn't wrong. Grief and finally feeling my repressed anxiety from the last few months of mama's life had been keeping me awake at night, and I was beat.

"Ok." Joe got up, and I stretched out on the couch. I was already almost asleep when he came back with a pillow and blanket, and he covered me up like I was about ten years old.

"You've got the dad thing down pretty good," I mumbled.

"Yeah," he chuckled, "that's one of the benefits of getting me after I've already done it twice. All right, time for me to get back to work." He leaned over and brushed his hand across my bare forehead, then stood up and shook his head. "Sorry, reflexes. I spent a lot of years trying to get Barry to sleep, and he liked it when I did that—calmed him down for some reason. Used to do it when I sat by his bed every night."

"Every night?" Even in my sleepy state, those words stuck out.

"Every night," Joe confirmed, "until he could handle the dark. Took a while. And—I'd have done the same thing for you."

He left, and I drifted off, feeling totally emptied of my self-reliance but filled up with something better. Like I said before, it didn't suck. Not at all.


	7. Home

You don't have to decide what to call a sister—mine was just her name, Iris, the girl as beautiful as the flower she was named after. But it was different with Joe. I'd been thinking of him as my dad for quite a while before I decided I wanted to call him that, and then it was weird.

Should I slip it into casual conversation? Should I tell him I was going to do it and, like, make a big deal out of it? I didn't know what to do.

It seems like maybe it shouldn't have been such a huge thing, but I didn't want to ruin the good vibe we had going. That's also why I didn't ask him if I could move in. He'd been letting me use the house for a while, to get away from the dorms occasionally, but then a bunch of new people came to our school for the new semester, and campus housing doubled in price. I couldn't swing that and classes, so I started sleeping on the floor of my buddy Jill's house. Problem was, she had three other guys living with her, and the whole place looked like it hadn't been cleaned since 1985. I searched the Internet for cheap places. I even went to the city Chamber of Commerce. Everything was out of my price range.

I knew Joe had a room; Iris had lived in it her whole life before college, and now it was a guest bedroom, but there's a big difference between letting a guy use your house once in a while to do homework for a couple of hours during the day and letting him move into your spare room. I trusted Joe, but I wasn't sure he trusted me yet. I tried to hint a couple of times, just in case he somehow wanted me, but it didn't go anywhere. That was too much to hope for, I figured. I was still the extra kid.

It's not like Joe wasn't nice. I mean, he offered me a ton of money so I could stay in the dorms. But that's not what I wanted. He'd done enough offering to pay off Mama's hospital bills, and it's not like he was getting rich off a detective's salary. It's just that—when I thought about moving in, it seemed like such a cool thing. To live in the house with my dad, not to have to drive over every time I wanted to say hi. To feel like I had a family again. Even living down the hall from Barry didn't seem like a bad deal; I was starting to think he was a pretty cool guy. After a while, living in Joe's house felt like that thing you want more than anything, that you're never going to get. And I couldn't just ask, because then he would feel like he had to say yes, whether he wanted to or not.

You know what I said about Barry being a cool guy? Turns out, he got it. He's the one who told Joe what I was really getting at when I dropped those hints about having nowhere to live. He saw straight through me, all the way to how much I wanted a home. I guess—you know, Barry didn't have Dr. Allen for eleven years. If anyone was going to understand what it's like to want to be with your dad as much as possible, it would be him.

So I came over one day, and Joe was renovating his guest room for me. Just like that. No weird, dramatic production. Just him, putting up posters, saying he was sorry he hadn't caught on sooner, that Barry had been the one to open his eyes. I said yes to moving in faster than the Flash brushes his teeth in the morning.

You know how, most of the time, life feels pretty random? Things don't usually happen the way they do in movies; nothing's perfect. Except, this was. My dad invited me into his house, the house he'd shared with my mom, then Iris, then Barry, the house that held his entire life. He made me part of that life, and he put his arms around me, and I called him Dad. Then and there, standing in my new room, knowing that my life was going to change forever, it was the exact, perfect, right time. Joe was a cop, a guy who'd been married to my mom. My dad was the guy who renovated a room just so I could live in it, who asked me how I was doing every day, who hugged me when I came and when I left, who told me off when he thought I was making bad decisions.

Home isn't really a place. I guess we all know that. I didn't want to move in because Joe West had a nice place in the suburbs. I wanted to move in because that place, every nook and cranny of it, was filled with love—the loving care that came from my father and touched everybody who came into contact with him.

I set my first bag down on the floor by the bed, and tears filled my eyes. "Mama, I'm home," I whispered. I knew she'd be smiling.


	8. Worth

The Flash saved my life. That's what started it. Yeah, you probably know the Flash is my foster brother, but I didn't. I just knew him as the guy who gave up all of his powers to save me, a random kid. The thing about Barry is, he would've done it even if he hadn't known me.

So there I was, a kid who'd only stopped street racing a couple of months back, with a debt of gratitude as big as Central City itself. I knew I couldn't pay it back, but I wanted to help. Just because I didn't have metahuman powers didn't mean I had no drive or desire to save people.

The first time I tried to help, I was heading home from school when I saw some kids robbing a convenience store. They were younger than me, probably in high school. I came over, and they got scared and ran, just because I started yelling and drawing attention. The owner, an older guy, was so thankful he gave me a case of Hershey bars as a gift.

Win, right? You might think so, but the next day, when the CCPD was reviewing the security camera footage to see if they could ID the kids, I was on it, and somebody recognized me and told my dad. I got home at the normal time, when he was usually still at work, but as I was unlocking the door to our house, he opened it.

My dad is a tall guy, and he's pretty imposing when he's not happy about something. I'm not exactly small, but he's got a few inches on me, and he used them to full advantage. "Heard something real interesting at work," he said. "Somebody stopped a robbery last night, but it wasn't the Flash. It was a kid coming back from college. You know something about that?"

I squared my shoulders. "I saw something going on, so I went to help."

"It didn't cross your mind to call 911 or something?"

I thought fast. "I—didn't know if they would hurt the owner of the place if I took the time."

"You sure about that? You sure you didn't just want to be the hero?"

I shrugged. He was probably right, but I wasn't about to admit it.

"Wally, may I remind you that you are not invincible, nor do you have any other power that would make bullets bounce off you? If those kids had been armed, something really ugly could have happened."

I stared at the carpet and didn't say anything.

"Your sister Iris and Barry and I really like having you around," he continued. "Taking stupid chances just because you feel like you owe the world or the Flash something isn't helpful; it's just naive."

I let the words wash over me. I liked the tone. I'm not a masochist, trust me, but when you've lived your whole life without your dad to tell you off, and you finally get a dad lecture, it feels weirdly affirming.

"Wally, are you listening?" Dad realized I was somewhere else, of course. He reads people; it's kind of his thing.

"Yeah," I said. "I get it."

He gave me a piercing stare. "Does that mean you're not going to do it again?"

"No," I said honestly. "I can't promise that. I really need to help."

He rubbed his hand over his face and sighed. "Why did the good Lord send me such stubborn kids? Do you think I like getting onto you? You're practically an adult, Wally, but somebody has to tell you if you're being stupid."

"Sorry," I said. Not because I was sorry for what I'd done, but I was sorry for worrying him. "Didn't mean to scare you. I thought you'd never find out."

"I'm glad I did," he answered sharply. "Obviously, I need to keep more of an eye on you." He went silent again and kept looking at me. Finally, he put his hands on my shoulders. "Be honest for a second."

"Okay," I answered.

"Wally, do you—like it when I get onto you?"

I blushed, and I really wanted to lie, but he would have seen through me. "It's kind of nice to have someone to get lectures from," I admitted.

Joe threw up his hands. "I give up. You kids are so different from each other that I'm never gonna get a handle on it, even if I live to be a hundred. Telling Iris off always got me a giant argument, and telling Barry off usually ended up with him in tears. I never had one that appreciated it."

"Mom worked a lot when I was little, and she checked out when her sickness got bad. I never had a stepdad," I explained, feeling shy about the fact that he'd managed to get to the truth.

"Well," he said, "you're going to get more than your fair share of it if you keep up this hero thing. I get that you want to help, but you're a kid, Wally, a brilliant kid, but not a metahuman or a cop. If you're thankful for what the Flash did, be a good student. Contribute something to the world."

"I—I'll try," I answered. Man, he was good. He might claim that he didn't understand us, but he knew what made his kids tick, and hearing that he thought I was brilliant and believed I could do something good in the world? That actually made me want to prove him right.

It was kind of a draw, when all was said and done. I'd said what I wanted to say, and my dad had said what he wanted to say. I hadn't expected to give an inch, but I found myself compromising, promising that I'd try not to do things that would get me killed, just because I wanted to make him proud.

"Come here." He put his hand on the back of my neck and pulled me in for a hug. "I'm glad you're safe." It was still new, the feeling of my dad holding onto me. I felt the tension drain out of my body in the safety of his embrace. I don't think that part will ever go away, no matter how old I am.

"Thanks, Dad," I said, pulling back after a while.

After that, I was even more conflicted. I didn't like doing things that worried my family, but I couldn't get rid of the fire in my belly. I had been spared for some reason, and I wanted to somehow prove I was worth it.

And then, on the weirdest day of my life, the Flash got his powers back, and I was hit in the explosion. I thought, maybe, just maybe, that's what everything had been for, what I was meant to be. If I finally had powers, surely everything would start to make sense.

Finally, maybe, I would be worth something.


End file.
